Writing letters to old friends.

Stephen took this photo as I was writing to my old College friend, Mary, who lives up in West Cumbria, with her hubby. We met on my first day at Edge Hill College of Education in 1966! And have been friends ever since.We also did our final teaching practice at the same school in Wigan. She had a little Mini by then and so we didn’t need to go on the coaches the College provided, which took ages as they dropped people off at their various schools en route. Some set out at 6.45 a.m.
We see each other rarely these days but keep in touch. Easier now there is the internet, to send and receive photos and catch up on news.
But I still like to write letters once in awhile, especially at Christmas. Rather than the printed type-written news review of the year.
She was one of my bridesmaids in July 1973.
And in fact we travelled with her and her parents in their large car, to our honeymoon destination in Keswick, where they dropped us off at our hotel!
We came home by the usual scheduled coach at the end of our week.
She taught in Cumbria right up to her retirement, at a village school in Eskdale and could see ScaFell from her classroom. Lots of farmers children attended the school.
Her parents were farmers who had a lot of land almost from St Bees as far down the coast as Seascale. So they could afford to put a manager in and take holidays.
I stayed there a few times, and Stephen and I after we were married.
The kitchen table was enormous and Mary’s mam (as she called her) used to do two breakfasts.
One for the workers who had been doing early milking and other jobs at 6.30am and another at 8.00am.
I have never seen so much food!
Her dad knew all the names of his dairy herd. I wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart.
The farm has since been sold as Mary’s brother Martin, who would have probably taken it over, died aged 13 just before she came to College. It was one of those inexplicable sudden deaths. He was at school at the time.
Mary and her husband Derek now have a lovely bungalow on the part of the land that wasn’t sold. It’s not far from St Bees.
Well I think it’s time to finish this trip down memory lane.
Old friends can see each other after years, and it’s as if they’ve never left off from where they were back then.
Time to think about making lunch.